New species from Ethiopia adds new face to human family tree

A newly discovered fossil in Ethiopia dated back to 3.3 to 3.5 million years said to add new face to human family tree.

An international team of scientists conducting paleontological field research in the Woranso-Mille area of the Afar region of Ethiopia has announced the discovery of a 3.3. to 3.5 million-year- old new human ancestor species.

The new species was found in central part of Afar region of Ethiopia about 520 km northeast of Addis Ababa by the team led by Dr. Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Curator at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

The Team has named the new species, Australophiticus Deyiremeda, and its name 'deyiremeda' means 'close relative' in the language spoken by the Afar people who live in the area of the discovery.

The new fossil specimens were found about 50 km north of Hadar a site of Lucy, Australopithecus afarensis is a species of hominid whose fossil dated to between 3.9 and 2.9 million years ago, and which was discovered in 1974.

Yonas Desta, Director General of the Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage of Ethiopia (ARCCH), told Xinhua on Saturday that the new finding gives another evidence to see the other perspective that there was another species living alongside the species of Lucy.

"The value or the new information revealed is better understanding of what was happening 3.3 to 3.5. million years of age now we have a physical evidence to argue there was another more species living alongside the afarensis family where Lucy had lived," said the Director General.

The holotype upper jaw and paratype lower jaws were recovered in areas locally known as Burtele and Waytaleyta, located in the Mille District Zone 1 of the Afar Regional State, said the statement jointly issues by ARCCH, the research team, and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Scientists have long argued that there was only one pre-human species at any given time between 3 and 4 million years ago, subsequently giving rise to another new species through time.

This was what the fossil record appeared to indicate until the end of the 20th century, said the statement.

However, the naming of Australopithecus bahrelghazali from Chad, and Kenyanthropus platyops from Kenya, both from the same period as Lucy's species Australopithecus afarensis, challenged this long-idea, it said.

Dr. Yohannes said the new species from Ethiopia is yet another confirmation that Lucy's species, Australophiticus afarensis, was not the only potential human ancestor species that roamed in what is now the Afar region of Ethiopia.

"Current fossil evidence from the Woranso-Mille study area clearly shows that there were at least two, if not three, early human species living at the same time and in close geographic proximity," he said.

"This new species from Ethiopia takes the ongoing debate on early hominin diversity to another level," said Dr. Yohannes.

"The new species is distinguished from the contemporaneous Australopithecus afarensis both in terms of the morphology and size of its thick-enameled teeth and the architecture of its jaw, indicating that it probably had a dietary adaptation different from that of the contemporaneous Australopithecus afarensis." Endi